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11.28.2012

The most intense solar maximum in fifty years is
coming. The prediction comes from a team led by Mausumi Dikpati of the
National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). "The next sunspot cycle
will be 30% to 50% stronger than the previous one," she says. If
correct, the years ahead could produce a burst of solar activity second
only to the historic Solar Max of 1958.

Active region 1158 let loose with an X2.2 flare late on February 15, the largest flare since Dec. 2006
credit:NASA/SDO

That
was a solar maximum. The Space Age was just beginning: Sputnik was
launched in Oct. 1957 and Explorer 1 (the first US satellite) in Jan.
1958. In 1958 you couldn't tell that a solar storm was underway by
looking at the bars on your cell phone; cell phones didn't exist. Even
so, people knew something big was happening when Northern Lights were
sighted three times in Mexico. A similar maximum now would be
noticed by its effect on cell phones, GPS, weather satellites and many
other modern technologies.

But today a similar solar maximum would cause major problems in our technological addicted societies

11.21.2012

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity dug up five scoops of sand from a patch
nicknamed "Rocknest." A suite of instruments called SAM analyzed Martian
soil samples, but the findings have not yet been released.

Scientists working on NASA's six-wheeled rover on Mars have a problem. But it's a good problem.

They
have some exciting new results from one of the rover's instruments. On
the one hand, they'd like to tell everybody what they found, but on the
other, they have to wait because they want to make sure their results
are not just some fluke or error in their instrument.

It's
a bind scientists frequently find themselves in, because by their
nature, scientists like to share their results. At the same time,
they're cautious because no one likes to make a big announcement and
then have to say "never mind."
The exciting
results are coming from an instrument in the rover called SAM.

"We're
getting data from SAM as we sit here and speak, and the data looks
really interesting," John Grotzinger, the principal investigator for the
rover mission, says during my visit last week to his office at NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. That's where data from SAM
first arrive on Earth. "The science team is busily chewing away on it
as it comes down," says Grotzinger.